Congress will preserve language, culture and harmony of Manipur: Rahul Gandhi

The Congress party wants to protect Manipur’s culture, history and language, Rahul Gandhi said on Monday at an election rally, accusing the incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government of undermining the interests of the people in the state.

“I want to help preserve your language, preserve your culture and preserve the harmony that is prevailing in Manipur,” Gandhi said ahead of the assembly elections scheduled on February 28 and March 5.

He promised that if the Congress wins, it will ensure a minimum support price for the state’s horticultural products, undertake schemes to promote rice cultivation and provide reservation for women.

Gandhi criticised the central government’s plan to promote palm oil plantations in Manipur, saying that they were not in the state’s best interests. The Centre wants “to destroy your future by creating palm oil plantations,” he said.

“I want to ask you, who exactly will these palm oil plantations help? Are they going to help the people of Manipur, or are they going to help 2-3 really large businesses in the country?” he asked. “That is not our interest. We’re interested in protecting the people of Manipur.”

“We want to make Manipur self-sufficient in rice production. That is why we want to expand irrigation facilities, so that the farmers will be able to grow two to three crops per year,” Gandhi said. “We want to empower the rice farmers of Manipur. We want to transform horticulture in Manipur. We want to guarantee a minimum price to the farmers of this wonderful state.”

Questioning the BJP’s promise to deliver citizen services to the doorstep, the parliamentarian from Kerala’s Wayanad said: “But they have not held hill council elections over the past five years. How do you take your governance to your doorsteps if you do not allow the people of Manipur to hold elections?”

On women’s empowerment, Gandhi said the Congress has created a unique market instrument to empower the women of Manipur. “We build one Ima market (women’s market), we have a committee to build many more,” he said. “Our biggest commitment is to guarantee one-third reservation for women in Manipur.”

Former chief minister and Congress legislature party leader O Ibobi Singh, Manipur Congress president N Loken, and Nagaland Congress chief K Therie were among those present at the rally.

In November 2010,the Congress chief Sonia Gandhi had inaugurated three women’s markets in Imphal.

After the 2017 assembly elections, Congress emerged as the single largest party in the state by winning 28 out of 60 seats. But with 21 seats, BJP formed the government with the support of the Naga People’s Front (4 seats) and the National People’s Party (5 seats).

“Rahul Gandhi may say what he like, but people in Manipur are aware about the misrule of Congress during its three consecutive governments from 2002 to 2017. They indulged in politics of violence and division. Out of the five years since 2017 our government got to work for just 3 years as 2 years were spent on fighting Covid. A comparison would show anyone that BJP government did more for Manipur in 3 years than what Congress did in 15 years. If Gandhi and Congress workers can’t see it, they must be visually handicapped,” BJP state vice-president Chidananda Singh said.